2014 Fantasy Football Buy or Sell: Kenbrell Thompkins

By Sean Cordy

Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports

When asking if you should buy or sell Kenbrell Thompkins, you’re really questioning if he’s even worth a roster spot. You’re not wanting to know if he’s going to be worth your 13th round pick — he’s currently has an average draft position (ADP) of 219. That means in most drafts, he goes undrafted. In fact, he’s only owned in 15 percent of Yahoo! fantasy football leagues, meaning GMs only shove out a last round pick for the second-year New England Patriotswide receiver. Even though that is a low value, is it a reasonable one?

At his ADP, he’s a ranked as the 64th best WR option. Translating that rank to last season, he would need to score 74 fantasy points to meet his current projected value — our baseline for him. Last season, he just missed that mark by three points. So an improvement to 74+ points is certainly within reason, but his preseason performance isn’t indicating any up or down season ahead for Thompkins.

He posted 122 yards and a score on 1 receptions. That’s impressive from afar, but when you consider that averages to 3.5 yards less than his average yards per reception last season, it’s a little disconcerting. He also averaged a touchdown for every eight receptions last regular season — whereas his ratio was 11:1 this preseason. Given these are preseason statistics and don’t necessarily have any true stock, but they can indicate what kind of individual progress he has made, and it’s not pushing me over the edge.

However, my biggest concern with Thompkins is not his progress as a player, or even how much Tom Brady likes him. My biggest worry is how crowded the passing arsenal is for the Patriots. Right now, Thompkins is the WR3 due to Aaron Dobson‘s lingering injury, but once Dobson returns to form, Thompkins will take the back seat.

Usually a WR3 can a good option, but in the case of the Patriots, they utilize their TE Rob Gronkowski. So Thompkins would not be the third target in demand, but rather the fourth (and only for a short span of time). Unless more injuries cause a domino effect, and Thompkins climbs the ladder without his own doing, I don’t foresee him getting extra targets this season.

To add to that, Thompkins ranked ninth 0n the Patriots for success rate among pass catchers. That means that even the backups behind him were able to accomplish more per reception than Thompkins was able to last season as the WR4. So with a limited amount of success and opportunity, I say to sell Thompkins. He’s not worth chewing up a roster spot for you just in case a superior Patriots WR were to get injured, there are better undrafted prospects like Miles Austin, Odell Beckham Jr., and Marqise Lee out there for you to pick.